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INDI Newsletter, April 2006
Angela Davis has been working with GOAL since 2001, after completing
an MSc in Public Health Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene
& Tropical Medicine. As a roving nutritionist, she has worked
in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and across Sudan, where she now coordinates
GOALs work in eastern Sudan.
Mixing management and nutrition, Davis feels that; ‘I have
gotten the best of both worlds. I love nutrition work – it’s
what I specialise in. But I also enjoy the diversity involved in
programme management and development.’
Davis worked as Senior Emergency Nutritionist in Ethiopia in 2002-3,
helping to oversee GOALs response to the food crisis in that country.
Reflecting on that work, and on the current food crisis affecting
east Africa, she says ‘as time goes by, traditional nomadic
lifestyles are fitting less well with land use. The upshot is that
food insecurity – always an issue for say the Masai in Kenya
– increases, as changes in land use, and the intensity of
land use alters the political economy in certain countries and reduces
the amount of land available for such pastoral and nomadic groups
who are becoming more and more marginalised.’
Since becoming Area Co-ordinator for GOAL in Kassala, Angela has
managed a multifaceted programme encompassing health, education,
sanitation, in a mixed emergency/recovery/development context.
Local staff are rapidly empowered to eventually run clinics, build
and maintain wells, develop vocational training programmes and take
on management responsibilities for the GOAL programmes.
However, various factors loom over any wished-for smooth transition.
Ethiopia and Eritrea could return to war anytime soon, which would
possibly send hundreds of thousands of refugees into eastern Sudan.
The Eritrean border is a mere 20 km from Kassala.
The Algash River is bone-dry for most of the year. But the rainy
season from July – September not only heightens risk of malaria,
but threatens Kassala with flooding. In 2003, 75% of the city was
affected when the river burst its’ banks - a repeat of which
could set back the development work planned by GOAL in the region.
And domestic political tensions in Sudan remain high, the nightmare
in Darfur notwithstanding. The January 2005 Comprehensive Peace
Agreement was mainly a north-south, government-Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) affair, and did not address grievances
expressed by other regions – such as Darfur.
Now similar feelings are brewing in the east, where a new organisation
called the Eastern Front, comprised of groups representing the main
eastern ethnic groups – the Beja and the Rashaida –
is agitating for a bigger slice of Sudan’s peacetime pie.
A flashpoint will be the proposed withdrawal of the SPLM/A from
the Hameshkoreb enclave, which was due to take place in January
2006 but has not yet been carried out. The Sudanese army will hope
to move in – but whether the Eastern Front assents to such
an outcome is not clear.
Fighting, if it does happen, will almost certainly lead to a severe
government response. The east of Sudan is agriculturally-rich, and
strategically-important, as oil pipelines from the south pass through
the east on their way to Port Sudan, Sudan’s only port and
a key import-export route.
Sudanese economic development is predicated on the oil economy
fulfilling its potential in world markets – and Sudan’s
domestic stability is predicated on the benefits of this being distributed
equitably across the country.
Whatever the outcome, violence in the east will do little for the
humanitarian prospects for the region. Kassala town is already host
to 65,000 IDPs – the main target beneficiaries of GOALs work
in the area.
Davis says ‘here in Kassala we want to move the emphasis
to recovery and development. But the reality is that there are a
number of things that could happen, that would derail this. So we
always have a contingency plan in place, in case things change.’
One of the projects Angela Davis and her GOAL colleagues run is
a literacy programme known as REFLECT (Regenerated Freirean Literacy
through Empowering Community Techniques), which also provides vocational
skills training.
Women from IDP camps are taught basic literacy relating to topics
which they have identified as relevant and useful to their day to
day lives, as well as a variety of skills – from handicrafts
to money management – enabling them acquire a degree of personal
independence hitherto unthought of, and also allowing them contribute
to the family economy.
Davis says “The REFLECT project has a tangible long-term
impact. I sat on an end-year evaluation and had IDP women telling
me, ‘This programme has really changed my life. For the first
time I can meet women outside of my immediate family, I can learn
things and help my children with their homework, my husband thinks
differently now about me being active and doing things independently.’”
“Working with GOAL has been wonderful. It is a highly pragmatic
and effective organisation – and the emphasis is on the ‘can-do’.
I’ve learned a lot – and despite being relatively young,
have gained significant management experience. And in a variety
of countries. GOAL’s attitude is if you prove yourself good
enough, then you can do the job.”
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